Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Sandwiches

Perhaps no type of food is loved more than the sandwich. Often overshadowed by its siblings “soup” (its big brother) and “salad” (its little sister, and which is one of my more favorites dishes, but I won't get into that here, but it goes to show you how much personal taste goes into something like this) the sandwich was still one of the favorites of many people, most of whom nervously agreed that it was an excellent all-around kind of food. Sandwiches, as you most likely know, are made from pressing foodstuffs between two pieces of “bread,” which is counter-intuitive to the way most non-sandwich food items are created (such as just throwing everything into a bowl without regard for its nutritional value or taste). However, I will endeavor to review the aspects of the sandwich as best as possible.

The sandwich as a food item appears to be much cleaner than most other varieties thereof on this Earth. I believe this is because it is counter-intuitive in its nature. The “bread” shell, which can be made of flat pieces of bread, flimsy pieces of bread curled up, or long pieces of bread with a hole cut down the middle, soaks up a majority of the more liquid bits of internal consistency common to the sandwich. It is my belief that primitive humans on this Earth, bereft of food which came to them and squealed happily as it was being devoured, or of fruit trees that literally threw their edibility at them, required a method to construct a food item that contained all their daily nutritional values in one place. I can't vouch for the reasoning behind setting meat on fire and calling that “food,” but I've been told since that meat is not necessary for a good sandwich (I beg to differ, but I also don't believe it should be set on fire to have a place in our food).

Sushi, our friend from the Orient, is practically a sandwich in its own right; wrapped in nori, a friendly and well-mannered algae common in the Pacific Ocean, rather than bread, it might be scarcely possible to call it a sandwich, but it is as clean and contains as much nutritional power as any sandwich, and is an excellent example of why burning meat to simply add it to a sandwich is not necessary.

Returning to the cleanliness issue, sandwiches are also handy when you don't wish to be forced to use both hands to eat. One can, for example, write an article though hunt-and-pecking while greedily stuffing your face with the latest creation of Jim at the City of Gyros without getting liquid on your keyboard (which I'm told is bad). They also appear to be designed with some nod towards flavor and succulence, with a high degree of texture and taste mixtures that work well together. Even so, not all components prefer to remain trapped. The bread, for example, separates easily into smaller, more difficult to handle granules that only tease at their flavor, and not all liquid or semi-liquid components are content to rest within the cage they have been given, and have a tendency to be unkind to one's clothing. All in all, while there are still some obvious bugs to work out with the sandwich, I prefer it to most varieties of other foods, and eagerly await sandwich 2.0! Get to work, engineers!

Cleanliness: 43/50
Breadiness: 50/50
Setting Meat on Fire: -10/50
Tastiness: Varies
Note: Makes your throat dry if you don't have water nearby.